Oh frabjous day!

In a missive that made designerds and code monkeys everywhere swoon with Valentiney love, our sweetheart Google announced they would stop supporting IE6. Or as our codeslingers call it, IE666. Google pulled out their vorpal blades and with a snicker-snack, they left IE6 dead. Hearing the news was just like being in high school and getting a pass out of P.E. We are chortling with joy. Callooh! Callay! We love you, Google. Muah! Now, if you could only do something about Comic Sans and Papyrus fonts…

Though seriously, 1) ThinkGeek is awesome and 2) The world needs to take a stand against IE6 and kudos to ThinkGeek for participating.  This is not a cut on Microsoft, or even Internet Explorer.  This is targeted specifically against IE6.  The sooner IE6 is gone, the happier the planet will be.

[Thinkgeek]

Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites. As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products — as well as new Docs and Sites features — won’t work properly in older browsers.

Unfortunately, it looks like the ancient browser will still work on Google itself; this appear to impact Google Apps and I have read other reports indicating it will also apply to gmail later in 2010. Not a huge surprise.  Digg, Mint, YouTube and many others have already phased out IE functionality.  It was simply taking up too much coding time to get features to work properly. The fact that IE6 was the source of Google’s breach probably didn’t help its case.

So if IE6 is so bad, why are people still using it?

Simple answer: they can’t switch— their IT department won’t let them upgrade. When digg polled their users it found 70% if their users were locked into IE6 due to IT policy restrictions. Which, bluntly, is lazy, stupid and dangerous.

So, what’s a person to do? Upgrade, obviously.  Any other browser around will provide a better user experience (any browser). If you develop applications or sites, I follow Digg and Google, ignore IE6.

And if someone in charge of an IE6-only IT policy is reading this, drop me a line.  I would love to fully understand why putting your infrastructure at risk is somehow safer.

And if you can’t upgrade, fight.

But until that happens, it’s fun to watch the finger pointing

Apple:  “Technically, we didn’t reject the app.  We’re still studying it.  Kinda like the Ark of the Covenant.”

AT&T: “Wasn’t us.”  “Sure it might have ruined us, but it isn’t our app store.  Please don’t look at all those phone calls to Apple.  We were just setting up a tea time.  honest.”

Google: “[redacted]”

In their own words. First, Apple:

Apple has not rejected the Google Voice application, and continues to study it. The application has not been approved because, as submitted for review, it appears to alter the iPhone’s distinctive user experience by replacing the iPhone’s core mobile telephone functionality and Apple user interface with its own user interface for telephone calls, text messaging and voicemail.

Want to know more?

Wired has a quick summary.  Read Google’s response (the part that isn’t redacted) Read AT&T’s response.

For more details there’s a pretty good analysis by Techcrunch.  (and more in depth information about it and the approval process too. ) Along with some good comments on lifehacker.  Grampa /. talks about it too. And Giz.  And Engadget. Pretty much everyone

Why is this important?  because if any of the three parties win, we win big.  Look at the class action suit over MMS. Right now there’s just finger pointing and speculation.  If we can put the blame squarely on a single company (<cough> AT&T) They will be forced to start making some changes.  But it gets tricky, by the same token, Google, who may or may not have blocked a VOIP application in it’s own app store will also have some ‘splainin to do.